THP #49: A Funeral*

February 25, 2024 – Randolph, Vermont
VTSU-Randolph v Central Maine Community College
YSCC Quaterfinals
Men’s Basketball

Randolph, Vermont is there. Never here. It’s a place to drive through on Route 89 with nary a thought toward it. A small community that, to the wider world, will always be someplace else full of other people. It’s there. Never here.

I’ve come to write a eulogy. VTSU-Randolph basketball, known the rest of this blog as Vermont Tech which was the former name of the school, is about to die.

Not only will this be the last game Tech basketball ever plays in Randolph, but this year marks the end of varsity athletics at the small college due to drastic budget cuts. Why? Because higher ed in Vermont is an absolute mess.

Public higher ed in the Green Mountain State has the University of Vermont in Burlington and then, what I will call the four small campuses. Castleton, Johnson, Lyndon, and Tech. The four small campuses all operate independently but this year combined into Vermont State University to consolidate resources and budgets.

The thing is, despite it’s small size, Vermont is difficult to traverse. Castleton is on the New York border and is a stone’s throw from Rutland, the state’s third most-populated city. It’s a thriving little corner of New England. Lyndon is in the Northeast Kingdom and has a renowned meterology program. Jim Cantore went there. Johnson, I’ve been told, is just kinda there. It’s not near much. This was told to me by a Vermonter. And Tech is a school specializing in niche majors and programs.

Even with the name change, and the impending cuts, Vermont Tech signage abounds around campus.

The closest any two campuses are by car is a shade over an hour (Johnson & Lyndon). Castleton and Lyndon are nearly 2:30 apart. The disparate nature of the campuses has made sustaining them difficult and a rash of cuts were called for before the academic year. The two most visible were Tech dropping all varsity athletics and the libraries consolidating down to an all-digital format with the books being donated and libraries being repurposed.

All season I thought about what this year at Tech must have been like. Even at the lowest levels of college basketball, here in the USCAA, the players are good. They’ve devoted years to the game and want to finish their organized playing career with their head held high and having actually finished. Win or lose, there’s something good for the soul about taking a task to the finish line.

And college sports are something that aren’t supposed to end. Students come, students go in 4-6 years, but there’s always more coming. At least, that’s how it’s been my whole life. The coming, and in many cases already-here, enrollment cliff is going to hit a lot of small colleges hard. But it’s not supposed to end. I was here to see what happens when the comma becomes a period.

I walked into the gym pregame and happened to see someone in a Tech polo. It was Brian Barnard, the assistant coach for the team. I pretended to be a fan of Central Maine and asked what it was like for him and the team reaching the end of their final season.

“Oh, this isn’t the end. The president brought sports back for a few more years.”

It was so sad hearing him wistful about….wait what did he say?

Not the end?! Few more years?!!? What the hell was he talking about?!?!

Whoa whoa whoa, hold on. I know what I read. This was the end.

Well, that was last February. What I hadn’t read about was what happened in April. The president everyone hated stepped down out of nowhere. The new interim was more or less like “Yeah, this sucks. Let’s restart things and take a more empirical approach.”

So the libraries were saved with layoff notices rescinded. And sports at Tech would be saved for the next three years while admin staff compiled data to determine “the number of student athletes per program and total, the retention rates, and what athletics have to do with those retention rates.”

This was wonderful for the school and the state and the students. This was horrible for a hobbyist basketball travel blogger who had had already had his newest post written in his head. There would be no eulogy. There would be a playoff game though. A rubber match between two teams that played a pair of great games throughout the season.

College basketball: a comma, not a period.

A reprieve for Tech, a moment with Bella for you.

Where am I?

Randolph, Vermont is right off Route 89. Take a left and there’s the McDonald’s and the gas station. Take a right and you’ll eventually drive right onto the campus. But take a few mile drive past the McDonald’s and you come upon a cute little downtown that is as Vermont as it gets.

Across from the train station is Chef’s Market. A scratch kitchen and food shop where you can get organic this and locally-grown that. It was small but varied.

The people were absolutely lovely. I grabbed a few meals to bring home for dinner as a surprise for my wife. For Mrs. I got a shepherd’s pie that was as homestyle New England as you could get.

On the flip. I got myself a beef burrito. It had all the flavors and all the savory. I think it could have benefited from some acid or some lettuce in there, but it was a damn fine burrito. Ground beef needs more love as a burrito protein.

The Campus

Tech is the largest of the four Vermont State campuses at 544 acres, and it offers a wide variety of associate’s and bachelor’s programs. Sure, you can get a degree in business administration here, but you can get that anywhere. Programs like construction management and diesel power technology and manufacturing engineering technology and renewable energy help VTC stand out academically.

With a student population of around 1,500 hundred, it’s quite small. But the entire Vermont State University, all four campuses combined, have just under 5,000 students in total.

But even in the dead of winter, the view sure is nice from up here.

The Game

The SHAPE Center is the home of sports and recreation at Vermont Tech. That’s an acronym for Student Health And Physical Education. With meeting spaces, locker rooms, offices, racquetball courts, and more, the SHAPE has everything a small campus needs to stay fit.

 

The trophy cases were numerous and full of hardware.

The gym itself was exactly what I was expecting from an incredibly small, non-NCAA college in Vermont. However the windows at the far end pumped in a great amount of natural light. More gyms need natural light.

This was an opening round game in the Yankee Small Collegiate Conference tournament. Not NCAA, not NAIA, Tech and Central Maine are in the USCAA. The last time we visited this organization was the very first installment of this series when I had no clue what I was doing here.

The organization is a blend of two-year and four-year schools. All of them are small colleges looking to compete with similar institutions. Despite this, both schools had games against NCAA competition this year. Tech played Norwich and Framingham State while Central Maine played Maine Maritime and Maine-Farmington.

Central Maine arrived in fully customized buses that looked tremendous. More logo buses are needed in the world.

But this was league playoffs. A spot in the final four next weekend in New Hampshire was on the line and both teams came to play early.

Yeah, that’s me hooting and hollering when Zay Ivey planted that three for Tech. I was with my friend, and proud Vermonter, Clayton, and he loves being a homer for the local schools. So for a few hours I was a Tech superfan. And the crowd was small but it was mighty, and it would make its feelings known all afternoon.

The game ebbed and flowed with ferocity throughout the first half. Central moved the ball cleanly while Tech’s frenetic energy kept opening up opportunities on both ends.

But Boston Caldwell, one of two New Zealanders on Central Maine, came to play and hit key shots early for the Mustangs.

As I’ve gone deeper and deeper into the world of college basketball, breaking beyond the barriers of the NCAA, I’m constantly amazed at how much talent there is out there. It really hit me toward the end of the first half. The passes were sent with authority, the game was played at a frenzied speed, and the players moved with grace among it all.

Despite no points in the sequence I was reminded that even here in the USCAA, playing organized basketball at this level puts you in the top 1-2% of all players in the world. And it speaks to how freakishly good you must be to climb to the top of the profession.

All the way down to the halftime horn, it was nip and tuck.

Tyler Allen’s 11 points paced Tech and kept it close as Central Maine went into halftime up 32-29 on the back of a balanced offense that had five players score either five or six points.

Let’s talk about Jackson Birmingham. One of the three Australians on the Mustangs’ roster, Birmingham was everywhere for Central Maine. Offense. Defense. The glass. It didn’t matter. He was there to help keep his team’s season alive for the 29 minutes he was on the floor.

Two became four became six quickly for the Mustangs. Jeremiah Simeon drops in two of his seven points here to light a fire for Central Maine.

As the minutes ticked off the Mustang lead grew. Caldwell continued to make timely plays, and Cam Pollock came off the bench and was a dynamo at the point. His midrange game was devastatingly good, as seen here.

Pollock played 25 minutes off the bench and had a team-high 20 points on 8-14 shooting for CMCC. His 6-7 from inside the arc were 12 back-breaking points to see go in for the home team.

But, like the athletic program itself, Vermont Tech wasn’t about to roll over and die.

But for every step forward by the Knights there was Pollock. And his midrange baseline jumper.

A pair of free throws from Birmingham opened a 16-point lead with just over four minutes to play. Central Maine was firmly in the lead.

But this is college basketball, the valley of the weird.

Now the gap was down to 10 points.

And then it was down to eight points. Things were happening. Vibes were changing. Another turnover, another few buckets, and the improbable could become real. All the Knights had to do was play within themselves and they had a crack at getting it over the finish line.

Yeah, I know, that was clearly a charge. I just wanted the call so badly because I wanted the comeback. But it wasn’t to be. The Mustangs hit their free throws down the stretch to ice the game. Free throws were the story as Tech went 13-25 from the stripe. Allen’s 23-point, 14-rebound performance simply wasn’t enough for the home team.

And it was Jackson Birmingham who put the cherry on top of the win for Central Maine.

Central Maine Community 78, VTSU-Randolph 68. Final.
Time of Game – 1:57:11
Player of the Game – Jackson Birmingham (CMCC) 16 points, 14 rebounds, 6 assists, 5 steals.

What a whirlwind of a Sunday. Ends. Beginnings. Ends again. Basketball as a community gathering point is my favorite version of the game, and seeing people show up in full-throated support for the Knights was a joy. I hope the reprieve lasts longer than three years for this program. They’re fighting the good fight, and I’m a fan for life.

I’ve said it so many times, and I will keep saying it: support your local athletic teams no matter how big or small because nothing is forever. That comma will eventually be a period.

And now onto March and everything that it entails. And, of course, one for the road…